


Dear Past-Me

by cherrygrace



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien knowing a little about his father, F/M, Father & Son - Freeform, Fluff, Gabriel being a decent person, Gen, Give me good moments in family, Light Angst, Slight Gabenath, bc I want to, but still kinda fluff, very very subtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrygrace/pseuds/cherrygrace
Summary: People says that curiosity always kill the cat but Adrien had step into his father’s room just for see how is inside there. He doesn’t know much about Gabriel anyways. But never came across his mind that his father collected a box full of old and recent drawings about the people he loves.[only sequel of Upset Drawings]
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth & Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Dear Past-Me

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, a great thank you to SkyFullOfStars412 for giving me this idea on the Upset Drawings fic. Like I really loved the scenario so much that I needed to write about!  
> It’s mostly centered in Gabriel and Adrien but Nathalie couldn't stay out of this.  
> You can read the “mother-fic” here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952960).  
> Also, I’m sorry for any errors. Please tell me so I can fix them! I hope you enjoy!

Since the Volpina incident, Adrien has learned that it was not a good idea to snoop around Gabriel's things. There were many things that he didn’t know well about his father and other small things that ended up being known to him over the years. There was a time when they were closer, but work on the fashion brand has always been a tough obstacle to overcome.

Gabriel's state of exhaustion was his trademark for his son. The gray eyes seemed more monochromatic every day, the weight of a whole name on his back.  _ His _ own name. This made Adrien question whether, at some point in the elder's life, being a designer seemed like an incredible and fun dream.

Curiosity hit him stronger than ever when he saw his father's bedroom door half open. It was an ordinary Saturday, Nathalie had taken a break from the job of tidying up the rooms and it was her custom to leave that sign as a reminder that the room was missing to clean.

Since there was a clear order that no one would unnecessarily enter one another's rooms, no adult ever worried about Adrien suddenly appearing anywhere. But the secretary had twenty minutes of rest and the room looked very inviting. At his side, Plagg only instigated his willingness to go and investigate.

In less than a minute, he was inside the room. The boy opened the curtains, revealing beige walls so clear that they practically shone in the sunlight. The furniture varied from white to gray, some details of red and black here and there.

The large couple bed looked intact, the sheets well aligned and without the slightest flaw. Because of the few times his mother took him to their room — when she needed to memorize the movie lines and wanted to be close to him at the same time — Adrien knew that his father kept the whole harmony of the room for a long fifteen years.

He sighed. With Emilie's absence, Gabriel was never the same again. Little by little, everything around him was gaining shades of gray.

“Doesn't your father have anything interesting outside of your mother's book?,” Plagg asked floating around the room.

“He's good at hiding things,” said Adrien, whose attention was drawn to the large bookcase near the bed. “I remember this. Mom kept the scripts here. The lowest shelves were always hers and the highest were my father's.”

“It must be nice to be a giant candy cane.”

The blonde gave the little kwami a look, but the smile on his lips delivered the laugh he was holding back. He turned to a large box at the top of the bookcase, a detail that puzzled him. There was a middle label in the middle with the letters “H. D.” and some small cursive inscription below.

“Plagg, can you get that box over here without destroying it?”

“Despite the disturbing lack of faith of my own chosen one…,” grunted the black kitten. “Just a minute.”

The kwami climbed the bookcase and entered the box, making it float to the floor where it could float from inside.

“They look like a lot of papers,” he commented.

Adrien sat on the floor and opened the lid of the box that really held a ridiculous amount of papers. The boy pulled one out and was surprised to find a drawing of Nathalie with her dark hair hanging down over her shoulders, a small and simple smile on her face. He put the paper aside and took another with a drawing of Emilie with a crown of lilies on her hair and a big smile.

The third paper was a drawing of his mother and himself when he was little, both sleeping together in an armchair. The forth was the secretary with a cup of coffee in hand — this time with her hair up like usual. 

And so Adrien continued on until the last piece of paper was removed from the box, the sheets getting older, the freest style and the dates running backwards. Emilie, Nathalie and him drawn, sometimes separated and sometimes together.

Plagg read the inscription on the box as “ _drawings made by an upset_ ” and that only brought more questions than answers. Adrien stopped looking at a drawing probably dated back to school years to justify the youthful appearance of it two models.

His mother and secretary were side by side, Emilie with a huge smile and Nathalie — with short hair — bringing the same simple smile from past sketches. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Below, a curved and strong calligraphy, a contrast to the other drawings with lighter writings.

**_“My only two friends.”_ **

A sudden presence behind him startled Adrien and when he turned — Plagg quickly hiding in his white jacket — Nathalie was standing, looking across the floor covered with drawings. Adrien was able to let out a breath, a little more relieved that it wasn't his father finding him.

“So you found the box of happy drawings,” said the woman with a slight hint of humor.

“Happy drawings?,” the boy repeated.

“Your father draws when he's upset,” she sighed, taking a paper with a drawing of it. “I have some with me, but they’re just the ones I managed to catch him drawing. His trait is excellent, don't you think?”

“It’s really impressive! But... why doesn't my father have any drawings of him? You know, with his face?”

“It’s what I call ‘photographer's cruel fate’. He’s so focused on capturing the feelings of others that he forgets his own emotions. His own presence.”

Nathalie seemed distant for a moment, watching her own drawn figure and then moving her gaze to the paper in Adrien's hands. From the first contact, Gabriel's charm for Emilie was extremely obvious. However, she was always surprised to learn that he saw her too. It might not be the way she wanted to, but it was still something.

_ “My only two friends.”  _ Did he always consider her a friend despite the cold way she used to treat him and their constant fights? She always told Emilie that he was crazy.

“Why does my father do this, Nathalie? Was he always like that?,” the young Agreste's question took her out of her thoughts.

The blue gaze looked at him intently, analyzing him. Father and son were nothing alike, yet there was something in the depths that connected them. In fact, when Adrien was happy, she remembered what young Gabriel was like. The Agreste man had such a silly and simple way of showing joy, a very innocent way. She liked that.

“You could ask him,” she replied.

“I doubt he would answer.”

“How do you know if you never asked?”

“I…,” the boy hesitated. Part of him was already giving up trying so hard and another wanted to insist more.

A third voice ended up interrupting the conversation.

“What are you doing?”

Gabriel contained a smile of satisfaction when he saw his son and the assistant — mainly she — jumped in fright. His gray gaze swept the floor near the bookshelf full of papers and his box of drawings.

“I see you two found my drawings,” he said. He would never complete the sentence with “happy”, that would be too silly. Emilie had given that name for it.

The boy looked down in shame and Miss Sancoeur stood up, both prepared to get scolded. However, those words didn’t come. The stylist just knelt and started to put the papers back in the box, in silence. The other two exchanged a look of confusion. This was nothing " _Gabriel Agreste_ " from him.

Looking at the drawings, Gabriel felt a sense of nostalgia welling up in his chest with each figure. Some were real memories, others images that your imagination built. But he loved them all. In the past, the idea of someone seeing his drawings terrified him to the last hair.

However, he has matured over the years — and all the times that Nathalie ended up finding him drawing by “accident”. Exhibiting his art was no longer a fear. It had become his source of income, his lifestyle and unfortunately, an obligation to keep his name.

Maybe that's why he kept drawing the people he loved and not clothes to calm him down. Thinking how that more than twenty years ago he didn't even have people outside his parents to be his human models, it was quite an advance. He suddenly stopped at another more recent drawing.

Emilie with the boy Adrien on her lap pointing in a specific direction and Nathalie beside them with her arms crossed but, following the same point with her eyes. They were the three people he loved most in the world. 

The secretary then knelt beside him, facing the drawing in his hands.

“You never tried to do anything with the three of us?,” she asked in a nonchalant tone, like someone who wants nothing. But he learned to see beyond her mask. There was a hint of sadness in those words. “Emilie, you and me.”

“And ruin the beauty of the image? Don't be ridiculous,” the man responded by placing the paper inside the box.

The two adults looked at each other for a moment, knowing exactly what they meant without having to speak.

_ Emilie would kick you if she heard you say something like that _ , Nathalie wanted to say.

_ You know I told the truth _ , Gabriel would reply.

A heavy silence formed. But papers continued to be placed in the box, as if nothing had happened. He was already used to thinking that way. Emilie was too kind to say what was clear in his eyes. He could be the most grotesque larva in the world and she would still want to have him around.

That was not the reality, however. As an artist, it was his job to show the world true beauty. His wife's grace, his friend's simplicity and his son's perfection. He wasn’t included at all.

A hand on his arm took him out of his thoughts. Adrien had an uncertain smile, but warm, just like his mother. He left the drawing in his hands on the box and turned to the older man.

“Why don't you try to draw the three of you when you were young? Don't hurry. I don't want you to be upset so soon,” he said smiling, gaining more confidence by the minute. “But… sometimes I feel like I don't know my own father.”

And it was with those words that Adrien got up and left the room. Gabriel remained silent, placing a drawing of Emilie in the box. He had once told her that when he was an adult, things would change. He would change, right? Nathalie took more papers and put them inside, from time to time watching the blonde.

_ "The future is going to be a spring field where I will enjoy every second of my flight!" _

But youthful ideals fall into the first storm of adult life. Experience and time stifle the purest dreams. Old age brings the reality of the world around. 

Gabriel knew how difficult it was.

The moment Emilie was infected indefinitely, the moment he left Adrien trapped in his tower, the moment he used the butterfly's miraculous, the moment he allowed Nathalie to be Mayura, he knew that he had disappointed his “ _past-him_ ”.

***

It had been a busy month for the entire Agreste mansion. Fashion week, contests, school tests, fencing championships and,  _ of course _ , akumas attack. Adrien came down from the bedroom to the dining room with a sleepy face still present. He barely noticed that Gabriel and Nathalie were there until the breakfast tray appeared in front of him with a folded paper beside it.

Curious, the boy unfolded the paper and gaped when he saw that it was a drawing.

Three young people close to what he recognized as half the Eiffel Tower. A blonde girl with a big smile on the left and a shorter girl with glasses and short dark hair on the right. In the middle of them, a little taller boy, with light hair, round glasses and long arms hugging his own body. He smiled sheepishly at Adrien.

“Father…”

“You'll be late if you get too distracted,” Gabriel wiped his lips with a napkin. “You can keep the drawing.”

Adrien alternated his gaze from one Gabriel to the other, still surprised. Meanwhile, Nathalie watched the man face his son with a very familiar smile. Light, silly and innocent. Her trembling and annoying old friend.

  
  



End file.
